When I started this blog thing it was winter, a very bad winter, and I was finding it hard to get out of the house/office as much as I would like. In those dark, cold days writing was a great way to expend some excess creative energy. As you can probably tell from the sparsity of my recent posts  my creative energy has been diverted in many other directions; The Chelsea Flower Show and filming for Alan Titchmarsh forthcoming series to name but two.

It’s interesting how whenever things quieten down a little I seem to have an idea for a post. I decided from the start that I would only blog when I felt I had something to get off my chest and not just do it for the sake of I don’t know what.

Well that’s the point. Right now I am far too wrapped up in lots of other things to be wasting time writing posts that no one’s likely to read. Or perhaps that’s just how it seems to me. After all everything really is relative isn’t it! I have to concede that I may be struggling to maintain a sense of perspective. After all, while I was collecting an RHS gold medal at Tatton Park last week, for a collaboration with my friends John Humphreys and Derek Smith (photos on the gallery soon) plans are being drawn up to make half the country’s teachers, doctors, nurses, road sweepers, police persons and garden designers redundant and in one fell swoop plunge us into economic oblivion.

Wow! I seem to have rediscovered  my inner writer or should that be ranter. Either way I feel a lot better now!

One of the most conspicuous yet least seen human traits is the tendency, particularly when acting on mass, to swing (no not that kind) wildly, first one way and then the other.

For instance, in the world of fashion we move from drain pipes to flares and back, rarely stopping to think that perhaps somewhere in between might be the perfect cut.

When Gordon proclaimed that he had ended boom and bust for ever, I for one had a good laugh.

No one can end boom and bust in the economy, any more than I could make everyone wear the same jeans until they are worn out, and then go and buy a new pair with the same cut as the old. It’s not going to happen because we are predisposed to be swingers. It’s human nature to react to one extreme by heading straight at the other.

The point of this ramble:

For all our sakes someone should tell our new government to spend just a few minutes looking back at the last 13 years of new labour’s reckless spending and wonder if swinging to the opposite extreme is going to help or hinder the economic recovery.

Mind you, it’s an ill wind that blows no one any good. A double dip recession will delight the Greens. Up, that is, until they can’t afford new batteries for their hybrid cars.

Sounds like a subject from Just A Minute. I can almost hear Clement Freud listing fabrics.

It’s actually the title of a talk I gave  to students at The London College of Garden Design. They  invited 3 designers who are apparently well known for their innovative use of hard landscaping, each to talk for 20 minutes.

Well now, I know as well as anyone the rule that you should never bite the hand that feeds, but I just can’t help feeling the most interesting aspect of this scenario is the title itself and what it, I suspect, quite innocently suggests.

It would seem to intimate that designers will all have their favourite materials and will naturally be inclined towards specifying those materials before and above others.

This situation, if true, would seem to be extremely detrimental to the creative process.

For my part, the material is usually part of the original concept. The material comes with the idea whether I like it or not. For instance, I have a deep loathing for tarmacadam, yet I used it at Hampton Court Flower Show in 2008 because it was the right material for that situation.

Therefore I would ask you not for your favourite but for the right material.

Now I am wondering whether this way of thinking could apply to other aspects of the human condition.

I really should be driving a black cab.

Well, I thought it would be a few weeks of rest and light work before Tatton Park  Show, but as John Lennon once sang, ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.’

Just last week, one unremarkable afternoon, out of the blue came an email from a TV company. Now I am working frantically to a deadline. All I can say for now is that it involves a ridiculous number of lettuces and a lot of compost, and if it goes well it will be on BBC2.

Then yesterday afternoon I received a message on my mobile with the news that one of the Chelsea Flower Show projects I have been working on has had its funding confirmed. That’s all I can say for now but it is a very exciting project and a great honour to be involved.

Well I suppose this serves as proof that you never know what’s around the next corner. Be it good or bad, it’s unlikely to be what you expected!

Yes, it’s true, I am back, back in what passes for reality or as near as I ever want to get to that much overrated destination.

I have spent the last three weeks, (while Dave and Nick have been on honeymoon), living in a much better place, the surreal bubble that is The Chelsea Flower Show.

For two weeks all that matters is the creation of my vision. Every waking hour is spent ensuring that what was in my imagination is created flawlessly at the show. Then another week is spent in joyously showing it off to the world. The TV coverage  goes all over, everywhere.

Now it’s over and the delicate process of coming down, ever-so gently, is under way. After a few weeks rest it will be time to do it all again at Tatton Park Show.

Remember the truth is out there!